This article highlights how recent changes to Wisconsin’s Medicaid-funded IRIS program—a self-directed support system for individuals with disabilities—are severely restricting the role of "support brokers." Under the new state Department of Health Services definitions, support brokers can no longer assist clients with essential, ongoing daily tasks like managing finances and reading mail; instead, their role is limited strictly to annual benefits renewal forms, capped at a maximum of six hours per year. Advocates and clients argue that these strict time and task limitations strip away the core philosophy of self-determination, leaving vulnerable individuals who lack family support struggling to manage their lives independently and setting them up to fail.

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